


Better Than Life

by eruthiel



Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Recreational Drug Use, Science Fiction, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7609636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between them on the bed is a small circular box, like the Walkman Hob saw once in a museum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Life

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Lord Greg Powers for feedback, bottled water and for letting me be first! Posting from my ipod so hopefully not too hecked up.
> 
> This will all be jossed soon so let's enjoy ourselves! Nearly called it Back to Earth - just so long as you get that I'm doing a Red Dwarf thing here, we're cool. I really liked Hob & Jim being cute & stoned together with the Comfort Buddy, so this is basically more of that. The manual thing about co-bonding is a legit quote from the website. ~research~

_MarsCorp supports and encourages close working between MarsCorp employees – but strong relationships require strong boundaries. To ensure a harmonious working environment that will maximise employee output, any and all romantic objectives must be acted on only through the MarsCorp employee co-bonding database, which will ensure minimal confrontation in any relationship and maximal physical and emotional pleasure. In the event of not achieving maximal physical and emotional pleasure, please do not contact the base manager._  
\- MarsCorp Manual, Vol. 1, Part 6

* * *

As she sinks to her knees in the corridor outside Martin's office, Hob recalls the Comfort Buddy - the way her mind trickled away, leaving only a vague sense that everything was going to be okay forever. Maybe what she's feeling now is the price she must pay for that moment of bliss: the unholy comedown, when nothing is going to be okay ever again.

"Hob? Are you all right? What's the matter?" Jim is crouching beside her, his big dumb puppy eyes full of concern. Hob slumps sideways into his arms and sobs on his filthy Hawaiian shirt. She hears him going "oh" and "um," but she also feels his hands come to rest gently on her trembling shoulders. She buries her face in his chest and bawls.

"Oh, dear. I hope I'm not interrupting."

It's Dave Price, and that's exactly what he's doing. Hob can sense Jim's suspicion, the slight tightening of his grip that might be protectiveness. She yanks herself away and sniffs hard, wipes her eyes on her sleeve. "Go away, Price."

"No need to be like that. I was only wondering if there was anything I could do to help."

Hob sighs, gestures for Jim to help her up off the floor. "That depends," she snaps, brushing dust and food crumbs from the knees of her jumpsuit. "Can you send me back in time?"

"Hmm. How far?"

"Four and a half centuries. Oh, and if you could get me back to Earth while you're at it, that would be just peachy."

An odd smile spreads across Price's face. He opens up his improbably large uniform jacket and reaches inside.

* * *

Hob and Jim sit cross-legged, facing one another from either end of Hob's bed. Her quarters have been home to several generations of senior managers over the years, and so are in fairly good condition compared to the rest of the base - though the previous occupant's belongings still litter every surface, and there's a reek from the bathroom which she doesn't want to investigate. Jim keeps looking around like he's in a cathedral; it's a far cry from his coffin-bunkpod, he says.

Between them on the bed is a small circular box, like the Walkman Hob saw once in a museum. The disc inside is spinning slowly. Around the outside of the device are eight small, circular sockets, evenly spaced, only two of which are plugged with wires - one on Hob's side, one on Jim's. Each wire splits into two about halfway up, with each split leading to a small self-adhesive electrode: two for her, two for him.

They both hold their electrodes, one to a fist.

"Are you sure about this?" Jim glances from Hob to the box, to the door, back to Hob again. "This thing is from the education unit. What was it you said? Using company property for anything other than its original..."

"Section twenty-five, item six." Hob nods. "Subject to disciplinary action. But the employee manual clearly states that deviation from standard operation procedure can be overruled by the acting supervisor."

"That's you."

"Correct. That's me. And I'm overruling it."

"But -"

"Jim. I'm also overruling whatever objections you might be about to raise. Need I remind you whose assistant you are?"

"Yours."

"Who is my assistant?"

"I am."

"So if I say jump, you say?"

"Um?"

"How high, Jim!"

"Got it!"

"And if I say I want to use some modified VR technology I bought from a salted nut dealer to hide from my grief at the fact that everyone I've ever known died hundreds of years ago and my life is in tatters - and I need someone to come with me because the doodad isn't for solo trips and you'll have to haul me out if I go off the deep end - you say?"

"How high?"

Hob could almost laugh. "Damn right." How high, indeed. Let's find out.

She fumbles the electrodes onto her temples and Jim follows suit without another word of complaint. Hob fishes in her pocket for the little plastic bag which Price slipped her. Two round pills, bright orange and black. She presses one into Jim's outstretched hand, tries to look determined.

"Remember, this thing is old. Really old. It'll be a miracle if it still works properly. We're taking a risk, here."

"But?"

"No but. Just reminding you."

Hob pops her pill, which immediately starts to fizz on her tongue, and sees Jim do the same. Before the drug takes over, she reaches out to flick the switch on top of the box and, like a lightbulb going out, the world disappears.

For a while, Hob floats in a damp nowhere. She has the powerful sensation of spinning, rocking back and forth in a giant invisible cradle, sliding backwards without moving. A pinprick of silver light appears off to her right, then another, overhead, and more. When the void is brilliant with stars, some kind of text begins to flash and zoom before her. She tries to close her eyes and finds that she can't. Then she tries to open her eyes and finds that she can.

The first thing she sees is music. Giant silver bubbles bursting. The neural input is messy, synaesthetic. Sunshine, grass, an insect buzzing in her ear.

"Oh! Cool!"

Jim is still sitting opposite her, cross-legged, his hands out to touch the grass. His head is thrown back to the blue sky. "So this is Earth, eh? It's a bit big, isn't it?"

Hob actually laughs this time. She feels like a huge, dark mass has been cut from her body, though she's not exactly sure what it was. "Yes! It's big."

"I feel funny. Does all music taste like sugar on Earth?"

"That's the old tech. Our sensory input is jumbled up. Does it bother you?"

"No." He beams. "It's nice. It's weird but it's nice. Your voice tastes like honey roast-flavoured meat product."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah!"

They both laugh for no reason - because the sun is shining, because of the soft glowing joy that engulfs them both. It's like being near the Comfort Buddy, but thrilling - anything is possible, everything is desirable. Jim's laugh looks like a series of colourful interlocking triangles gliding up into the sky.

Together they clamber to their feet. For the first time, Hob notices that they are both barefoot. Her uniform has been replaced by a floaty maxi dress in a bright pink floral print, hung with golden beads, while Jim is wearing nothing but ripped jeans and a straw hat. Hob remarks that it's an improvement on his usual gear, which makes them both laugh again. Then she points out that she doesn't actually know what his torso looks like under his clothes, in real life, so what she's seeing now is the VR machine's attempt to reconcile her subconscious expectations with his own self-image. For some reason this makes them both laugh even more. Then Jim points out, with perfect innocence, that he already saw her naked when she came out of suspended animation, so he knows that what he's seeing checks out.

When Hob looks down, she realises that he's right. It's not a dress after all; it's a skirt, and her breasts are exposed. So are her corporate tattoos, each one struck through except MarsCorp, kept fresh all these years by the suspended animation jelly. Jim only has the one; he was born property of MarsCorp.

Beaming, Hob takes Jim's hand and leads him down the hill towards the music.

"Hob, where are all the buildings? The roads? I thought Earth was a great city planet."

"It was. This is - I don't know. Twentieth Century? Before I was born. This disc is a history lesson."

Jim gawps at the shapes writhing in the sky. "I never had a lesson like this. Well, I never learned history. Are those clouds?"

"Clouds, yes. But they didn't come in those colours, not during the day." Hob squints; she's sure they never used to ripple like that, either. "Didn't MarsCorp educate you? Youth conditioning, sort of thing?"

Jim shrugs. "Conditioning, sure. Education was a bit beyond my reach. I've picked stuff up from old movies. But why would I ever need to know anything? I'm not anything."

"I suppose."

At the foot of the hill is an open-air stage, flanked by towering amplifiers. A band of eight or nine people are onstage, playing their silver sugar music on otherworldly instruments, while a large crowd sway and embrace at their feet. Hob isn't sure it ever really looked like this, but she recognises elements of the scene from a movie, or was it a documentary, or a dream? She feels a pang of fear: there are people in this crowd that she needs to find, needs to talk to. She doesn't know who, only that she will know them when she sees them, and that she desperately wants to see them, and that she is afraid to see them.

As if sensing her anxiety, Jim squeezes her hand and gives her a reassuring smile. "You're okay, Boss. It's all going to be fine."

Together they traipse down the hill, laughing at the music and the people and their own absurd beauty. Everybody onstage is gorgeous, Hob thinks. Everybody in the crowd is fantastic. She herself is a goddess and Jim is the most beautiful of all. She doesn't feel in the least self-conscious about her naked chest. For a moment she thinks about the employee co-bonding database, but surely it doesn't count if it's only computer-aided make-believe.

As they draw closer to the stage, the music closes around them like a hug. Everyone in the crowd is glad to see them, calling out to them by name - some have faces from Hob's memories, others seem to be Jim's friends from the base. They all move in a vague, pleasing blur.

They dance together. She wraps her arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around her waist. Hob rests her head against Jim's and sways with him, smiling at the taste of the sun on her face, the sound of the grass between her toes, his warm bulk carrying her into the music. It's going to be okay.

"You're something," she murmurs.

"Huh?"

"You're not 'not anything,' Jim. You're mine."

He gives her a drowsy grin. "Oh, yeah." He pauses, wiggles to the music. When he speaks again, it comes out shy. "What's your name, Hob? I know, I know. But I can't help wondering. What did your family call you?"

Before Hob can settle on a response, she sees something over Jim's shoulder which makes the lovely liquid gold in her stomach freeze solid. She grips him tight, unable to look away. "My family," she hisses. "Jim, hide me."

He spins them both around, pulls her face to his shoulder. She cowers there, in the dark, breathing hard through the taste of his skin. She remembers now, everything she came here to forget. She has to see them. But she can't! They're gone, they're not real. They're a primitive VR machine's interpretation of her memories. They're a simple simulation of her love and grief. She can't face them. Why did she come here?

"Take me home, Jim," she whispers, beneath the suddenly discordant music from the broken amplifiers. Titanic panes of black and white alternate in the sky, rolling overhead, faster and faster. She clings. "Take me home."

"How?" He looks at her with a face from the real world, polite fear and uncertainty and no independent will whatsoever. If she doesn't tell him what to do, she realises, he'll do nothing.

"We can't wait for the disc to play itself out. We have to deactivate the machine."

"But - how? It's... it's not here..."

"It is! It's right in front of us! We're still on the bed in my quarters!"

Jim looks around helplessly, as if he's expecting the room to materialise around him. Hob heaves in a few breaths, tries to focus. She can feel the presence of something behind her, drawing closer. "I have to get back into the middle space. Tune out the VR input, get myself into a state where I can access my real body, my real senses."

"Have you done this before?"

"No. Have you?"

"No."

Hob closes her eyes and allows the simulation to slide through her. For a moment she thinks that the presence behind her has arrived, shudders at the prickle of something about to scrape her shoulder blade. Instead of flinching away, she forces herself to be still and relax.

And slowly, very slowly, the world begins to fade. The music dwindles into the distance, the warmth of Jim's body pulls away, leaving her alone in the void once more. She feels the spinning, rocking, sliding sensation. She tries flexing her toes and feels the scratchy sheet of her bed on Mars.

For half a second, she believes that this too is a dream, and her real awakening will be back on Earth, in her own time.

Trembling, still in the dark, Hob reaches out one arm. She feels around for the box, finally hits it with her thumb. She feels drunk as she tries over and over again to flip the switch, but eventually she manages it.

As the machine starts to power down, she feels herself rising faster and faster to the surface of a lake. She opens her eyes, still bleary and sore from tears she doesn't remember, just in time to see Jim flop backwards against the headboard. They're both still under the influence, and Hob has no idea how long they were in the simulation, or how long they'll have to wait before the drugs wear off.

With painful care and deliberation, operating each muscle as if for the first time, Hob removes her electrodes. Then she crawls, inch by inch, to the top of the bed, and removes Jim's electrodes before curling up in the crook of his outstretched arm. She has no more strength left to cry, but she shakes, both of her legs jittering uncontrollably on the mattress. She hears the box slide off and hit the floor.

Jim's chest rises and falls peacefully beneath her hand. How Hob envies his stupidity. How liberating to be nothing, no responsibilities, no future, nobody looking to you for direction, nobody expecting you to succeed. All of her simulated happiness has evaporated and left her desolate, except for this: she still feels safer, being close to Jim.


End file.
